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Have We Failed You?
By Michael Willard
If you are the incumbent ad or PR agency and you are told the account is going into review, you have a very large hill to climb with a 100 kilo sack of wet cement on your back.
In other words, the client knows you, and hasn’t been particularly impressed. The client wants to see who and what else is out there. There could be many reasons for this, including the inertia of a client that hasn’t encouraged an aggressive agenda.
However, we cite former Young & Rubicam chief Tom Bell’s version of Newton’s Law of Physics: “A client in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force. Conversely, a client at rest will stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force.”
In other words, it is the agency’s responsibility to lead the client, particularly when it appears the client is lethargic in pursuing its own marketing objectives. Eventually, a country manager will say “show me what we’ve done.”
The agency should have been on the client’s doorstep daily and if one initiative wasn’t moving should have come up with others.
On occasion a corporate headquarters will dictate that there has to be a tender every couple of years or so. However, by and large, this is left up to the discretion of the country general manager and PR or marketing teams.
If your agency is the incumbent and the account goes into review, what should you do if it is not a mandated tender from headquarters? Our suggestion would be to meet with the client, and have a heart to heart discussion.
Ask the basic question: Have we failed you?
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